Saturday, July 28, 2012

MAIDENHAIR FERN DISHCLOTH

I wish I knew the source for this charming little leafy pattern, but all I can tell you is that a friend of mine wore a commercially made sweater with this stitch, which fascinated me. I tossed it on the xerox machine so that I could figure it out. I was at a loss for names, but my husband suggested that the little columns resembled the fronds of maidenhair fern. And so they do.

I used Knitpicks Dishie. My cloth is about 9 inches wide. If you prefer a thicker yarn such as Peaches & Creme, I would go up two needle sizes and make three columns of fronds rather than four.

With #4 needles cast on 46 stitches (33 for P&C). Knit four rows in garter stitch for the bottom border. Then keeping the side 3 stitches in garter stitch, follow the chart below until the cloth is square. Make a garter stitch border at the top too.

Parenthetical comment: I have been teaching myself to make knitting charts with Excel. I'm slow, but getting better. Today I figured out how to label things with text boxes.

11 comments:

I would love to make this dishcloth, but I have no clue how to read a pattern! Is there any way you can write out the instructions per row for me? I know it's a lot of work, but I would really appreciate it! ~ Carla ~

Aprilangel427@aol.com (put Maidenhair Fern in the subject line so I know it's okay to open!)

This is my first time using a chart, but I must say I'm pretty confused. I'm pretty sure that there is no way there can be 4 of the leaf pattern with only 46 cast on stitches. I'm changing the amount of cast on stitches for my own project, but any explanation here would help a lot!

I just started knitting about 1 year ago so i am not adept at reading the patterns. I would deeply appreciate it if you could email me written instructions for this pattern. It is simply wonderful and different. I LOVE IT! Any help would be great.Thank youDawn ( dstrantz@gmail.com )

After several attempts at trying to figure out what was wrong with the count, I have figured it out. This is based on a repeat count of 11, not 13. So you will need to cast on multiples of 11 plus edge. For me, using Sugar n Cream, I cast on 39. For the folks that aren't getting the chart, you read a chart starting on the side that has the number. Conventionally, that would be from bottom to top, right to left for odd rows and left to right for even rows. If there is a set of dark lines, the repeat falls between these. That being said, some folks don't follow conventions, so just start with number 1 and go across the row whichever way you have to go. I drew a nice dark line where it says END HERE and ignored all the rest, following a garter stitch on edges. (If I screwed this up, I'll edit it after I finish this washcloth.)

Also: the way this is written, the knits and purls change based on whether it is the RS or WS. So, the white squares (knit) on the odd rows are purls on the even rows. This is spelled out in the directions, but I had to color it in on my own copy so that I would top mixing it up. The count of 39 works- that's 3 knits on each side. The folks that say 46 are giving wider borders than I chose.

I have found the correct answer to the count. The pattern chart indicates an 11 stitch pattern to be repeated, with 2 RS purl stitches between each repetition. Therefore, the amount of cast on stitches needed for this can be found with this equation, where n = number of desired repetitions, b = number of border stitches: (n * 11) + 2(n - 1) + 2b.